The twentieth century has
been a remarkable time in the history of the church. Today, I want to tell you
a true story of a Pope’s call to respond to the Holy Spirit.Just over one hundred years ago, Pope Leo
XIII was urged by a nun, Sr. Elena, to renew preaching and dedication to the
Holy Spirit in the life of the church, which she felt had been sadly neglected.
He responded in 1892 by asking the whole Church to celebrate a solemn novena (9
days of prayer) in preparation for the feast of Pentecost. It would seem that
this was generally ignored by the bishops. Later, following more letters from
Elena in similar vein, in 1897 the Pope published an Encyclical (teaching) on
the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church (Divinum
Illud Munus), and again urged that the whole Church practise
devotion to the Holy Spirit. Many bishops wrote and thanked him, but Sr. Elena
later commented that it would have been better if they had just obeyed him!

A Pope prays for the new Century

In 1900 she again urged the
pope to begin the first year of the new century by praying "Come Holy
Spirit". Once again, he wrote to the bishops to dedicate the twentieth
century to the Holy Spirit, and he spent the night of December 31, 1900 alone
in the Vatican praying for this intention.

We now know that, within a
few hours, God's first response fell on a group of Methodists in Topeka,
Kansas. They, too, were praying that night to understand the events described
in the Acts of the Apostles, and the Holy Spirit touched Agnes Oznam - and then
the remainder of that group - with a new fire and an ability to pray in
tongues. This event is generally seen as the beginning of the Pentecostal
church, which has been the fastest growing arm of Christian belief in the last
century.

So a Roman Catholic pope in
Rome prays for the Holy Spirit to come, who falls on "Bible-bashing
Methodists" in Kansas!Don't tell
me that God has no sense of humour!Once we appreciate that "God has no favourites", we will learn
to accept each other as He does!Even
more important is that we must understand that our lack of obedience doesn't stop
God from acting; He just uses another channel to fulfil His purposes.
This is another reason why none of us must ever regard our own denomination as
"superior".

Fifty Years
On

To see a further response to
Pope Leo's prayer for this century, we move forward over fifty years to the
election of Pope John XXIII, in 1959.Pope
John, (then seen as an elderly and compromise candidate for the papacy, who was
expected to do nothing startling)dramatically called the second Vatican Council and dedicated it to the
Holy Spirit. His prayer "Renew thy
wonders in this our day as by a new Pentecost" on opening the
council,has been answered by God
through the second major reformation in the Catholic church (the first being
known as the counter-reformation back in the seventeenth century.)

This last forty years has
seen the renewal of the whole church, with a greater appreciation of the gifts
of the Spirit and, at last, a real emphasis on the Unity in Christ of all
believers. It has been accompanied by a coming together of denominations,
rather than continuing schisms seen for the last thousand years.

So today all Christians celebrate a New
Millennium, with God-given Hope - through which, in an uncertain age, we look
forward to the certainty of the future.This year then, we can Hope, that is, expect, God to call all
Christians together in the love
and power of the Holy Spirit to complete Jesus’ work of evangelising and
reconciling the world.

And whatever next?

Sister
Elena must be rejoicing in heaven at what the Holy Spirit has already wrought
through her prayer! Incidentally, she was beatified (the second stage of being
recognised as a "saint") in 1959 just before that Vatican Council.